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Session Summaries
Session 1: A Plague of Cats Ascendant moon: Shen Having just joined the Adventurer's Guild, the five PCs met at the Platinum Dragon and ritually shared a bit of backstory to become an official adventuring group. A ranking member of the guild, Den Frostwarder, gave them their choice of two different adventures to start off with: either they could go to the Market district and clear out some muck elementals that had been clogging up the sewers, or they could help an outlying village defeat some "fearsome monsters" that were attacking it. Not being fond of the sewers, the party chose the second option. Following Den's directions they got to the town of Picayune and found it devoid of activity. After interrogating the cows in a barn, the party found a family of commoners boarded up in their house. The father, Oser, had been mauled while in his fields, and his wife was near hysterical in pleading for the party to help them. (Oser himself seemed less than thrilled, while their 5-year-old son barraged the party with questions.) Apparently a local named Jeb usually protected the town, but for some reason hadn't. After Doc Terminus's attempt at curing Oser instead shrunk him to half his size, the party was quickly ushered out and told to see if they could figure out what was up with Jeb. After tracking down his house (artfully decorated with the skulls of several score badgers, housecats, kobolds, goblins, and other low-level monsters), they got to listed to Jeb, a crusty old codger, harangue them as "high-and-mighty adventurers." Apparently he'd been defending the town for nearly fifty years, but had recently developed an allergy to cats, which was why he wasn't helping out. He thought it was high time some other young village whelp got some backbone, but so far no one had stepped up to the task. Don Pequeno's insinuating insults got Jeb pretty riled up, and he slammed the door in the party's face. He did open it enough to throw them out some balls of yarn and a bundle of catnip, though. And right then a hooded figure approached the house, proclaiming itself "Mon Gatticus" and casting a spell that made half the party smell like anchovies, triggering over a dozen cats to start attacking them. The following battle was fierce but relatively short, involving the trouncing of many housecats and several shadow-summoned ones as well (and one lynx with very poor eyesight that kept hitting posts instead of PCs). During this fight Violetta suddenly and miraculously recovered from the cold that had kept her from saying or doing anything up to this point, and with a few good shots she managed to take out Mon Gatticus. Picayune was saved, and the party went back to Nexus to collect their adventuring licenses. In-Between Adventures During the time-skip between the first and second sessions, the PCs had the following adventures: *The Sweet Destruction, wherein over the course of three cold winter weeks the party had to save the town of Pearilous from an avalanche of molasses. *Wrath of the Jigglemaster, wherein the party defeated Lord Jiggulous and his army of Jello elementals. *The Buccaneers of Bristol, wherein the party had to defend an airship convoy from the attacks of the Dread Pirate Sullivan and his crew of bardic buccaneers. *The Dragon’s Ante, wherein the party rescued a young female bard from an elder vermillion dragon through clever game of poker. (Kethalia, the rescued bard, has repaid the group by becoming their official groupie and recorder-of-exaggerated-tales.) *The Pernician Kestrel, wherein the part had to smuggle a valuable bird statue past endless ranks of undead customs agents. *The Defense of Waydev, wherein the party actually had to defend a town from marauding orcs. *The Squishing Fields, wherein the party was hired to de-infest the grounds of Lord Garrulous of its ten thousand dire cockroaches. *Staged Performance, wherein the party had to protect the orcish rock band Blades and Axes from other adventurers trying to get some XP. *The Adventurer's First Primer, wherein the group was hired my a rather hysterical halfling woman to defeat the vicious beasts in her basement. The group found a small nest of rats. Not dire rats—the normal, non-dire kind. Hey, it was a few XP and the lady paid well. Plus, the group earned the requisite "Kill a Rat" roleplaying achievement. *The Tide of Death, wherein Orcus, Lord of Undead, tore open the barriers between the Abyss and the Prime Material Plane and flooded the world with undead demons. The epic-level party, armed with +6 vorpal greatswords and the cosmos's most powerful magics, only just managed to defeat the tide of monsters and, in a final climactic battle, slew the very prince of undead himself, the demon prince Orcus. Then reality shimmered and everyone found themselves back to normal, blinking and wondering what strange stellar confluence or planar conjunction made THAT happen. *Invasion of the Cow Snatchers, wherein the group was recruited to help a farm defend their livestock against invading creatures from another plane that wished to abduct the cattle for unknown but undoubtedly nefarious purposes. The night was long and grueling, but in the end the heroes prevailed in saving their bovine charges from the strange creatures and were rewarded with milk and cookies. Session 2: Lost Menagerie Ascendant moon: Morre After perusing the notice board at the Platinum Dragon, the heroes decided to check out the following advertisement: :Itinerate wizard seeks band of adventurers to recover miscellaneous lost items. Quick response please. Rewards: 2000 GP base, additional depending on results. Inquire for Jontho at 47 Moltenna Way, Nexus. Upon arriving at the locale, the heroes were greeted warmly by the elf Jontho and led to his basement laboratory, where his halfbrother had recently sabotaged his entry for the 347th Annual Create-A-Creature Competition. (Though he left boot tracks, a bit of torn robe, and a mocking note, contest rules prevented Jontho from prosecuting his brother unless he was caught in the act.) The sabotage was done by overfeeding Jontho's Carp of Serene Meditation, which had the unfortunate habit of exploding when overfull. (The heroes quickly realized Jontho is very well intentioned but tends to create ridiculously destructive things unintentionally.) It let three of his creations escape: *A saber-toothed lemmingsaur (aka "Fluffy"), a pint-sized engine of firebreathing destruction that will instantly and unrelentingly attack anyone named Cliff. Supposedly created to aid rulers in learning the proper use of their power. *A nine-headed Penguioctopus (main head plus one on each arm) named Petunia that has a voracious appetite for fish. Intended to amuse children at birthday parties. *A collection of cranium lice, which mentally control victims and force them into massive multi-level marketing schemes. Originally meant to aid meditation and concentration. Lacking any firm leads, the party headed to the Market District to see if they could find the penguioctopus around the fishmongers. There was no sign of it, but after some investigation they overheard one fishmonger complaining to the Thieve's Guild about unauthorized thefts. The fishmonger, a high-ranking member of the guild, didn't seem particularly happy to have adventurers involved, but he let them see the warehouses where the fish had been stolen from. After some investigation (and dealing with a pathologically dour half-orc guard named Engen), they figured out that the penguioctopus was coming in through drains in the floor, and that the best way to lure it was to use bacon-wrapped arctic trout. After a brief trip to the market for supplies, the party set their trap in an unpilfered warehouse and set about to wait. Around 2 AM Petunia came knocking, having grown to Large size with all the fish she'd stolen. After a brief struggle involving several flying kicks, some shoves, and judicious use of sleep, Petunia was locked in a crate and delivered to Jontho, where she was received with much joy and cuddling. One creature down, the party then returned to the Market, where the day before they'd spotted a young man selling Cramway beauty products whom they suspected of being infested with cranium lice. They couldn't find him, but did find a young woman who tried to push the same products on them, including forcibly spraying Shitake with perfume. A minute later she developed an irresistible urge to buy and share the products, so Andry hauled her off to a bathhouse to get rid of the lice. Meanwhile, Violetta forcibly shoved conditioner into the woman's hair, at which point she woke up and wondered where she was. After removing the cranium lice into a jar, Violetta let her go and confiscated the Cramway supplies. All the lice got returned to Jontho, whom Andry Intimidated into burning them. (It's unknown whether he actually carried through with it.) Tracking the lemmingsaur led the party to Embertown, after Violetta realized that the rumors of increased lab explosions there were due to half the businesses being named after Cliffhaven. The party ran to one and, after rescuing a young drawf woman, saw a small furry something dart out of the building when the firefighter turned a decanter of endless water on the blast. A brief fight later had Zhou grab the lemmingsaur and stuff it in a metal chamberpot Violetta had conveniently brought along for just that purpose. Its fiery breath scorched the pot to glowing red, but judicious use of mage hand and hold portal let them carry it back to Jontho without the lemmingsaur escaping. Jontho was overjoyed to have his Fluffy back, and rewarded the PCs with both their promised 2000 GP and their pick of some spare magic items he had tinkered around with. Predictably, they had interesting side-effects, such as mittens that keep you warm and incidentally shoot waves of flame, and seeds that make little serene bonsai trees that then explode into massive blasts of acid. (Doubtless the party will find many and sundry uses for them that would be appalling to the kindhearted Jontho.) Session 3: Planar Pizza Ascendant moon: Vitrium Due to Morre's ascension last time, Nexus had been predictably beset by yet another necromancer making a bid for local domination. Thankfully, Ariolimaximus the Beslimed and his army of necro-slugs were easily taken out, especially once it was discovered they all had ::Vulnerability 5 (salt).:: After mopping up a small next of slugs they'd stumbled upon, the party headed to the Platinum Dragon for a bit of lunch and to see what jobs were available. After checking out the notice board, they decided on an advertisement they'd seen previously but which had been updated since last time: *''Wanted: Band of ^competent adventurers to defend supply caravans from brigands and poachers, and to remove said poachers. Interplanar experience preferred. Rewards: Standard, plus free pizza ^and bonus 500 GP each. Inquire at Planar Pizza.'' Enticed by the promise of pizza, the party headed to Planar Pizza, in Nexus's Portal District, and met with the proprietor, a portly halfling named Don Donatelli. The Don showed them the secret to the restaurant's success: a small portal he had found that led to the Elemental Plane of Pizza. He'd used it's pristine ingredients to build his restaurant, but the Chef's Guild hadn't taken kindly to his edging in on their turn and he suspects they're behind recent attacks on his supply lines and the poaching of the plane's native denizens, the pizza turtles. After squeezing through the portal, the party used Violetta's airship (shrunk and then re-enlarged to fit through) and the plane's subjective gravity to start scouting for the interplanar pizza pirates. After a few hours they managed to track a small pirate ship, though due to their less-than-stellar* planar tracking abilities the pirates got the jump on them. *pun intended Thence began an epic battle, wherein the pirates showed their severe lack of ability to hit anything meaningful (except for Shitake who got used as a pincushion for an acid dagger). Eventually the party killed two of the pirates and took the remaining three captive. They were able to locate some maps on the ship, but couldn't decipher the code and so had to coerce one of the pirates into telling them. (It helped when Boo bit off his companion's fingers in an escape attempt.) The party then headed to the pirates' base, anchored off an oregano asteroid in the outer fringes of the plane. When they got near they had to strip the pirates to use their clothing as a disguise, and thence followed an exchange between Violetta and one of the pirates that demonstrated her ability to thoroughly dress-down and insult those who deserve it. The party managed to sneak to the pirate vessel, but were found out as soon as the boss ("The Baron," a chef dressed all in black with some sort of magical spork) appeared. Then followed another epic fight, which was going badly for the PCs until Zhou so badly hurt the Baron that he fled with a personal plane shift. The pirates fell into disarray then (severe enough it seemed that the Baron may have been boosting them magically), and were quickly vanquished. Searching the Baron's quarters found a bunch of high-quality food, some platinum diningware, and the sextant of interplanar transference hidden behind a picture. (The sextant is a lesser Macguffin that allows plane shift twice per day, but you have to know the right coordinates or you could end up literally anywhere.) After selling the pirate's galleon to Don Donatelli, the party made off with a hefty profit and a coupon of free pizza +5 each. Session 4: The Nose Knows Ascendant moon: Shen The session started with the PCs receiving a fruit basket from the wizard Jontho, thanking them for their help previously and informing them of some awards he'd won in the Create-A-Creature competition. The basket included a rich variety of fruits, including several "blissmelons" from Jontho's own garden. (The flesh is divine, but swallowing the seeds can apparently cause temporary psychosis; Andry tried it on a summoned celestial poodle, but they weren't able to learn much before she dismissed it.) Checking out the notice board, the party decided to take up the following advertisement: *''The noble kingdom of Valour seeks the aid of Good-hearted adventurers in defeating a sinister plague that is crippling the ranks of its noble paladins. Rewards: Standard, paid in gold currency, plus the grace and gratitude of Valour.'' The party loaded up on handkerchiefs, then headed to Valour, a noble kingdom with 85% of the population having at least one rank in Paladin. (The neighboring city-states consider Valour to be honest, hardworking, and a little annoying.) They were intercepted outside the palace by some guards and led down to speak with the Crown Prince, Ertis. The Prince was happy to see the his party arrive, though his black-clad advisor, Moreldred, most certainly was not. Ertis explained that a few weeks ago Valour had been beset by a crippling plague. It didn't kill, but it left victims--apparently chosen at random--with severe congestion, headaches, mild fever, burning eyes, and often in utter misery. Worst of all was that the kingdom's holy relic--The Nose of Saint Velinar de Bergerac--had been affected, completely invalidating its ability to smell evil approaching the kingdom. The Prince suspected one of Valour's enemies was going to move against it, but didn't know who or when. The PCs started by trying to track down the source of the plague. They visited the Adamantine Cathedral, which had been turned into a hospital ward for the plague victims. After talking with an eager cleric and his presumed Patient Zero, they found that the first cases had all begun in and around the Palace. Looking over the palace themselves didn't reveal anything, so they began questioning the staff. Few had answers until one recommended they talk to the gardener, since most of his staff appeared to have escaped unscathed, supposedly due to "good, healthy sunshine." The gardener, Master Kinnemack, was busy trimming some of the many topiaries around the palace grounds when the PCs found him. They he claimed innocence, Andry's detect thoughts revealed he was hiding something, and after some hefty intimidation he left slip that breathing through holy water-soaked cloth could prevent and cure the disease. He then revealed that he'd been paid by an unknown person to plant ornamental dire ragweed around the palace, which he had seen as a colossal joke on all the stuck-up paladins. Of course, now that he'd told them that, the had to kill them, and he commanded the topiaries to attack. Though the battle was fierce, Kinnemack was no fighter and quickly fell to Zhou's massive pummeling, with the topiaries following thereafter to others' combined attacks. (Including, in a bit of irony, the detonation of several of the bonsai trees of arboreal harmony that they'd gotten from Jontho.) Before they could haul Kinnemack to the Prince, however, messages arrived heralding the arrival of the army of Loathslow, ready to sack and destroy Valour. The PCs hurried to the Prince and explained the situation, then came up with the idea of catapulting the ragweed among the enemy army. A frantic hour later and the front lines of Loathslow lay beleaguered by massive allergies, even while the paladins of Valour began recovering (thanks to their copious ability to produce holy water). Since Loathslow hated nothing more than a fair fight, Ertis was confident they would retreat within a few days, and summarily thanked the PCs and sent them on their way with their reward in gold pieces. As a final enigma, once the party arrived back in Nexus they found a package for Don Pequeno, consisting of a single red rose without any clue as to who had sent it. Session 5: The Dark Lord Rises Ascendant moon: Vitrium, changing to Primalis The party was playing a rousing round of Three Dragon Ante with Den Frostwarder at the Platinum Dragon as the session began. While he stepped out to answer nature's call, a pair of smartly dressed waiters delivered a gorgeous cake to the party's table, tricked out in sculpted icing filigree and cold blue flame waterfalls. Den just had time to shout a warning before it exploded, hitting the PCs with a blast of bone-chilling cold. The cake, it turns out, was one of the Chef's Guild's famed cake suzettes, their favored tool of assassination. After debating for a few minutes whether they should seek revenge now or let their enemy (presumably the Baron, whom they defeated on the Elemental Plane of Pizza) level up some to get more XP for defeating him later, they decided to check the notice board and see what their other options were. Intrigued by one of the ads, they decided to follow this one: *''Rising dark lord seeks band of semi-competent adventurers to attempt to thwart his ascension to power. Inquire at Roilhill, upper Waddavewe. Reward: Whatever you can claim from my cold, dead fingers'' The PCs took the southern route to Waddavewe, preferring the ale and leiderhosen of Umlout to the vampires and blood-taxes of Sangria, for some reason. They made it with only a minor, off-screen encounter with some giant shrews, and after lots of asking around were able to locate the small hamlet of Roilville in the Western part of the nation. The little hamlet was little more than a collection of buildings around a crossroads, and as they arrived a crazy old man approached them ranting about how death had come on the back of a giant chicken, and the scream of the hedgehog of death would show them all as the Geistmeister came to claim them all for their sins!!!! sic Brushing the old codger off, the party headed straight for the town's only inn. As soon as they walked through the door the innkeeper sized them up and asked if they were adventurers coming in response to the disappearances. When they said yes, except they hadn't heard of any disappearances, the innkeeper said he'd tell them about it after they'd had a chance to get settled; dark was coming on, and no one would be going out again anyway. After getting a pair of adjoining rooms, the party headed back downstairs for some dinner. The innkeeper introduced himself as Serran, and explained that for the past few weeks there'd been odd sounds at night and farm animals found mutilated, and just the past few days a few people on the outskirts had gone missing. Whenever weird stuff like this happens adventurers always seem to show up after a while, so he wasn't surprised the party had come to town. He also explained that the old crazy man was "Crazy Coot," who had been prophesying gloom and doom for as long as anyone could remember. (His previous rant a few weeks back had been about Brassicales, Dark Lord of Cabbages, and before that it was P'tui, the Penguin Ultimus.) Halfway through dinner the party was interrupted with an ear-shattering, soul-chilling scream coming from outside. Everyone stayed hushed for a few minutes, but it didn't repeat, and gradually things went back to normal. Serren explained that they hadn't heard that one before, but stuff like it had been going on for a while. The night passed relatively uneventfully, and the next morning a farmer came into the inn to ask if any adventurers had shown up yet. His name was Eron, and his farm had been subject to a lot of the weird noises, and this morning he'd woken up to find a message on the side of the barn in chicken blood. (He couldn't read it though, being illiterate.) The PCs followed him out to his farm and found it as described, but they couldn't read the ancient script either. Thankfully, Shitake's newly inherited sword Kusanagotchi could, and translated it as the typical "Your souls shall be mine" fare of evil forces. Tramping through the woods discovered a few patches of dying plant life, but nothing more, so the party decided to stay the night in the barn. About sunset the moons started shifting, with Primalis coming to ascention and stirring up a kiler thunderstorm in the process. Round about midnight the party spotted an eerie blue figure walking across the field, whereafter they had their first fight with a ghost (and realized they were drastically underequipped in the magic weapon department). But they eventually managed to destroy the ghost, at which point the farmhouse got hit by a fireball. After making sure everyone inside was okay (the house was built sturdy, and the rain put out the fire quickly) the party ran off through the woods tracking the other ghost. They found him and a gunslinger at an old set of ruins, with the family's 10-year-old son tried to an alter while coruscating greenish light played over him. The party managed to defeat the ghosts and rescue the child before anything too horrific happened, and headed back to the farm to the family's grateful embraces. (And got paid with Eron's special Cabbage Mending Juice, a cabbage-based healing potion of exceptional potency.) As the party was leaving town they were accosted by Crazy Coot again, but before he could get far Zhou kicked him a good five yards off the road. Cursing, he told them to just take the package he was supposed to give them and get out of town. The package turned out to be a chest with giftwrapped parcels of 100 platinum pieces each, plus a note from "The Geistmeister" thanking them for their assistance, and he looked forward to seeing them again in 2-3 levels. Session 6: Out of Sorts Ascendant moon: Arbora The session began with Violetta doing some research in the Mitharchus University library, looking for any religious references to "Cordell" due to an odd dream she had. She got a little lost in the stacks (the magical library being much, much bigger on the inside than out), and threatened to damage a book in order to get some help out. At which point a 12-foot-tall, hulking automaton appeared behind her and firmly pointed her the way to go. Back at the Platinum Dragon later, everyone realized something was wrong when Shitake walked in looking transparent and able to walk through people and tables. Apparently she'd somehow left her body behind that morning, so everyone headed back to her place to see how she was. Thankfully her body was still alive, but neither she nor her sword had any idea how she'd gotten separated from it. After trucking her body to the temple of Rarask Umbaa, then the temple of Svela, and finally the Guild of Necromancers (Official motto: "We're not all evil"), they finally got information on what had happened. Apparently Shitake had been poisoned with ghostshear poison, a very rare poison that severs the connection between soul and body. A little investigation revealed that all of the party had been poisoned, but only Shitake had been unfortunate enough to fail her initial saves. (Thankfully she made the last one, or her body would have exploded into ectoplasmic goo.) The necromancer they were speaking with didn't know how to fix it, since it was so rare, but recommended several courses of action. Two were nixed because they involved Shitake dying (though the Guild would have paid very nicely for her body), and the third involved staying still inside her body for 3 weeks. So instead they hiked to a cemetery to find Gartuuk the Mad, an ancient necromancer who could supposedly help. Gartuuk, it turns out, was a goblin ghost, and quite upset by a party of adventurers coming to interrupt the dictation of his automortography. He said his help would cost them, specifically that they would have to reinstate his library privileges at Mitharchus University. Not having many other options, the party accepted and headed to the University. At the library, they found that Gartuuk's privileges has been suspended because of (1) loud talking in the library, (2) refusal to pay an overdue fine, and (3) reanimation of 14 students for use as helpers (somewhat mitigated by the fact that they were talking loudly and one was chewing bubble gum). The limits on the first and third had expired, but Gartuuk had never paid the second. It had originally been only 1 gold piece, but after 187 years of compound interest it now stood at over 55 million gold. The Librarian (the same hulking automaton Violetta had met earlier) offered them that they could perform 3 services for the library instead: eradicate a bookworm infestation, fix the sorting stacks, and return a book to the Deep Stacks. They started with the bookworms, leaving Shitake's body checked with the front desk. Unfortunately, the bookworms turned out to be book''wyrms'', large spirit-dragon agglomerations of text that spewed pure ideas. (Based on the texts they'd apparently just "eaten," the three wyrms got nicknamed Comedy, Tragedy, and Math by the party.) The fight was a little rough, but they eventually managed to defeat the creatures without too much harm to the books in question. Next came the sorting stacks, where the party found two groups of mephits engaged in an enormous war over the proper way to sort the books (via letter or number). After listening for a bit, Don Pequeno gave an absolutely jaw-dropping speech about how to compromise and split them by fiction and nonfiction, an oration that left many of the mephits in tears over its sheer organizational beauty. And thus the sorting stacks were fixed. Last was the Deep Stacks, made most difficult by having to walk for nearly 16 hours through shelf-canyons and endless rows of stacks to get to the place where the book belonged. Some clever skill use made it (relatively) harmless, though, and after a mere 30 hours they finally made it back to the front desk. Tasks complete, the Librarian issued them a library card for Gartuuk and gave them Shitake's body back. They took her to Gartuuk, who demanded a bottle of sovereign glue, 13 magnets, and a pickle to put her back in. The ingredients gathered--including a genuine ghost pickle, thanks to Don Pequeno stopping by the Guild of Necromancers--Gartuuk cast the spell, doused Shitake with now-ethereal sovereign glue, and slammed herback into her body. He told her to take it easy for a few days until it set, then headed back in to continue his dictation. And Shitake headed to bed. ---- Main | Campaign